Travels Through Time

Our guest today is the New York Times bestselling historian Charles King, the author of Every Valley: The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times that Made Handel's Messiah.

The Messiah is one of the best known pieces of all classical music and, as King suggests at the beginning of this conversation, it 'may be the world's greatest monument to the possibility of hope'.

To tell us more about how such an extraordinary piece was written, as well as to take us along to its premiere in Dublin in April 1742, King sat down with us for a travel back through time just the other day.

Charles King is the author of Every Valley: The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times that Made Handel's Messiah

Show notes
Scene One: 13 April, 1742. The words 'Comfort ye/Every Valley' at the premiere of the Messiah in Dublin.

Scene Two: 13 April, 1742. The words 'He Was Despised' at the premiere of the Messiah in Dublin.

Scene Three: 13 April, 1742. The Hallelujah chorus at the premiere of the Messiah in Dublin.

Memento: The original manuscript of Handel's Messiah.

People/Social
Presenters: Peter Moore and Min Kym

Guest: Charles King

Production: Maria Nolan

Our guest today is Tharik Hussain, a travel writer turned historian who has recently produced  an enchanting study of Europe's Islamic history. To investigate this at close quarters, in this episode he takes us back to Córdoba in the year 929 – the greatest city in Europe at the time, a place of wealth and splendour with a population of around 100,000.

By 929 Córdoba was emerging as a rival power base to Baghdad. At a Friday prayers, early in the year, its ruler Abdul Rahman III declared himself Caliph of the Caliphate of Cordoba, Al Andalus. This was a decisive political move.

Tharik takes us into the Grand Mosque to see this happen and he then guides us on a tour of two more equally intriguing sites.

Tharik Hussain is the author Muslim Europe: A Journey in Search of a Fourteen Hundred Year History

Show notes
Scene One: Friday Prayers in the Great Mosque of Córdoba. 17 January 929.

Scene Two: Inside a Córdoban hospital, or 'maristan'.

Scene Three: One of the great synagogues of Cordoba in search of a young Jewish boy called Hasdai Ibn Shaprut.

Memento: The plans that were drawn up for AR III’s Caliphate City – Madinah az Zahra. 

People/Social
Presenter: Peter Moore

Guest: Tharik Hussain

Production: Maria Nolan

Theme music: Firelight by Minka

Our guest today is Sarah Wise, an author known for her incisive social studies of nineteenth century history. In this episode Wise takes us back to a more recent year, 1947, so she can investigate the moment when the British public began to turn against the Mental Deficiency Act of 1913.

The Mental Deficiency Act was a terrifying piece of legislation that resulted in the imprisonment of tens of thousands of vulnerable people. As Wise explains, many of its victims were young, working class women who were deemed incurable 'moral imbeciles'. As such they were locked away with no hope of release. In 1947 this began to change.

Sarah Wise is the author The Undesirables: The Law that Locked Away a Generation.

Show notes
Scene One: George Scott Rimmington's bungalow in Newton Abbot (September 1947)

Scene Two: Publication of The News of the World's expose of Margery X (1947)

Scene Three: Cambridgeshire MP stands up in the Commons and asks Aneurin "Nye" Bevan a question (30 January 1947)

Memento: A pencil written letter from 'Christine' to her mother. 

People/Social
Presenter: Peter Moore

Guest: Sarah Wise

Production: Maria Nolan

Theme music: Firelight by Minka

In this episode from our archive we spoke to the archeologist and broadcaster Neil Oliver, a figure familiar to millions in the UK. While Oliver's television work has taken him around the world, he retains a special connection to his Scottish homeland. One historical site, in particular, continues to enchant him: Skara Brae.

Skara Brae on the wind scoured Orkney Islands is the best-preserved Neolithic settlement in all of western Europe. Embedded inside its stone houses and in the surviving monuments are tantalising clues to how our ancient ancestors lived and how they died.

In this episode Oliver takes us back four and a half millennia to around 2,500BC to see Skara Brae as a dynamic, living community. He then explains the mysteries that surround its abandoment and considers the significance of the settlement to us today.

Show notes
Scene One: A day in the life of Skara Brae

Scene Two: The great mystery of the settlement's abandonment

Scene Three: Where did the people go?

Memento: A sharp stone knife

People/Social
Presenter: Peter Moore

Guest: Neil Oliver

Production: Maria Nolan

Podcast partner: Unseen Histories

There's no more familiar piece of classical music than Antonio Vivaldi's The Four Seasons. But for all the recordings and broadcasts and interpretations of it that there has been over the past three centuries, there is still some mystery about the music. Why did Vivaldi write it? What were his inspirations? Where and when did The Four Seasons burst into life.

The broadcaster and author Dr Hannah French has written a wonderful, incisive book called The Rolling Year that examines questions like this. In this special episode Peter and the violinist Min Kym sat down with Hannah to find out more about Vivaldi, his music, Mantua and Manchester.

Enjoy the music. We'll be returning to the Travels Through Time format very soon!

Show notes
People/Social
Interviewers: Peter Moore and Min Kym

Guest: Dr Hannah French

Production: Maria Nolan

Music: John Harrison, The Four Seasons